Returning for its sixth festive season, he tells us why the show is like an ‘intimate conversation with the audience’
Greenwich Weekender: What can you tell us about Mr Charles Dickens presents A Christmas Carol?
John O’Connor: The show is based on Dickens’s own public performances of A Christmas Carol in the 1860s. He toured all over Britain and America performing to 2,000 people a night and was an absolute sensation. So successful was he that he made more money from his public readings than from all his novels put together.
The starting point for the show was, “What must it have been like to be in the audience?” There have been many one-man versions of A Christmas Carol but the first and greatest was by Dickens himself and that’s what I try and recreate. It’s simply the author, his audience and the greatest Christmas story ever told.
How does it feel to be performing this show for the sixth time?
It’s a great privilege because people come back to see it year after year. They love the story so much and come to tap into something fundamental about Christmas – so I have to be at the top of my game.
I can only really do A Christmas Carol in December (unlike Dickens who used to perform it in August) so there’s always an 11-month gap between the last and first performances. That alone keeps it fresh and honest. I’m a year older and come to it with a bit more experience.
In fact, I’m now the age Dickens was when he performed it at his peak – but thankfully, I’m not, like him, also writing a serialised novel while touring America, editing two magazines and campaigning for social change all at the same time!
It uses the original Dickens’s script, why is this important to the telling of the tale?
Dickens worked on this performance script for years, editing and shaping it for maximum effect and getting it down to about 90 minutes, so this is the version that we use.
It’s fascinating to see how he communicated A Christmas Carol directly to his public. People who have seen it tell me they love the storytelling aspect of the show.
There have been some wonderful adaptations of A Christmas Carol (from The Muppets to Doctor Who) but it’s great to go back to the source and hear it straight from the author himself. At its best, the show is like an intimate conversation with the audience.
How does it feel to be performing so close to the Greenwich Literary Institution, where Dickens himself performed in 1866?
It certainly adds a frisson of authenticity to the performance. Dickens knew the area extremely well and regularly used to visit his parents at home in Blackheath.
Greenwich features in Sketches by Boz, The Uncommercial Traveller, David Copperfield and Bleak House. In Our Mutual Friend, there’s even a wedding at St Alfege Church opposite the theatre and a reception in the Trafalgar Tavern, where Dickens was known to drink.
So, Greenwich Theatre is really the perfect place to recreate A Christmas Carol and, after six years of performing here, it feels like coming home.
Dickens took to the stage to perform many of his other works, including excerpts from Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and Nicholas Nickleby. If you were to perform one of his other stories, which would it be?
Dickens’s most popular reading was always A Christmas Carol, but this was closely followed by The Trial from Pickwick, which was a comic tour-de-force. I’ve often thought about bringing this to life as The Pickwick Papers is one of my favourite books and is completely bonkers from start to finish.
Dickens had been a court reporter, so he knew as well as anyone that the law was an ass. As the legal profession hasn’t really changed in 200 years, I’m sure audiences will recognise the absurdity and avarice on show. It would be a lot of fun to do.
How does theatre compare to your television roles? And what do you enjoy about theatre performances?
Television is great because you get the chance to do your scene several times from different angles and if mistakes happen, you can always do it again. With theatre – and especially a one-man show – there is no safety net. So, when things go wrong (as they occasionally do) it’s about how you recover and bring people with you.
In TV, you have no idea how the audience is going to like the finished show but in theatre, you get immediate responses (laughter, tears, applause) and you can ride that great wave of energy coming over the footlights. Walking on stage, it’s just you, the audience and the story, which is what makes it so thrilling.
Showing from 16 to 23 December 2024
Tickets: £17, concession £14.50
Crooms Hill, Greenwich, SE10 8ES
Images by David Bartholemew
